On a winning streak

This week I’ve been judging entries for business awards. There really are some amazing small businesses out there doing innovative things and growing impressively. The problem for judges like me is that every year the entrants seem to get more forward thinking, customer centred and professional, making decisions almost impossible. Each entry I read seems like the best and when you go back through them all again everyone is a winner. How to tell them apart? How to choose ‘the one’? Usually the (temporary) answer is another cup of tea.

Businesses are often, rather mistakenly in my experience, written off as being ‘lifestyle businesses’ with the inference that they are just hobbies, won’t be productive beyond creating an income for the founder and won’t grow. There are some founders who set up businesses simply to provide an income for themselves and their family. What’s wrong with that? The alternative could be to work for a big business, if you can find a skills match and don’t need flexibility to fit in caring responsibilities, or it could be to be unemployed because there are no available matching vacancies. Setting up a business is often the best option. Once the business is up and running it’s often the case that what was born out of the need for income becomes a growth opportunity and takes off in unexpected ways. These small start-ups often grow into big firms of the future bringing much needed employment and added social value to their communities. There are quite a few of those in the batch I’ve been judging: started small, acquired a growth aspiration and now looking to a bigger future.

Then there are the firms that were born to serve a purpose. These are powerhouses even while they remain small. They’re purpose led with vision and on a mission, centred around the needs of customers and employees, the communities they’re rooted in and wider society. They understand the importance of treating everyone fairly including their suppliers, sourcing locally, employing locally, contributing to schools and projects locally, creating jobs, training apprentices, adding social value. They believe in inclusivity for the good of the business as well as for communities and include mental wellbeing in their list of essential issues to address. As their reputation spreads as an employer of choice they flourish and grow, sometimes despite a determination to stay small. It’s not about profit for these businesses but about improving the lives of everyone they touch.

And then there are those that have ambitions to grow. Some do it in 25 years, some in 2.5. Some haven’t grown yet but can see how adopting new technologies and keeping up to date with technological developments will give them the impetus to grow and that’s giving them the ambition to stay ahead of their competition.

All these businesses are valuable, not just to the UK economy but also to the local communities they work in, to wider society, to other businesses they work with and to the treasury as they pay their taxes. I want to give them all awards for resilience in the face of ongoing challenges. I want them all to have the support they need to succeed. I want them all to be paid quicker and have fair payment terms written into their contracts with their customers, so they can invest and thrive. I want them to become all that they can be and be sustainable in the long term. In the meantime, I still can’t pick a winner so I’m off for another cup of tea.